


Johnny Walker and Tattoos

by allthebeautifulthings9828



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse, Arguing, Drunk Castiel, Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, Fallen Castiel, Gen, Human Castiel, Impala Fic, Implied Castiel/Dean Winchester, M/M, POV Dean Winchester, Possibly Unrequited Love, Tattooed Castiel, Tattoos, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 14:04:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthebeautifulthings9828/pseuds/allthebeautifulthings9828
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Getting Castiel buzzed for his anti-possession tattoo backfires for Dean when he turns sloppy drunk. Along the ride back to the bunker, Castiel slowly deconstructs until he begins talking the way he did in 2014. It terrifies Dean and they argue. Unresolved feelings boil under the surface but they both know the only way they can avoid the 2014 fate is to stick together. (Note: Endverse tags are there because this ficlet heavily references that period.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Johnny Walker and Tattoos

"You know what, Dean..." slurred Castiel through uneven eyes and a lopsided smile. "You are the prettiest human I've ever seen. And I'm old. Really old."

"Okay, Cas. Get in the damn car," Dean replied as he shoved the new human the passenger door.

Except he popped upright again, surprisingly agile for being so drunk. "No but Dean--"

"--Sit!"

Jesus, he certainly couldn't hold his booze worth a damn. Dean only meant to give him some of the Johnny Walker he had lying around to take the edge off the tattoo needle. He finally got Castiel sequestered in the passenger seat after that weird-ass you're so pretty babble, which he filed away in the ignore pile along with every other moment that suggested something neither man openly acknowledged. At least it was done. A white bandage taped over Castiel's left pectoral muscle protected a fresh anti-possession tattoo.

Most of the drive back to the bunker kept Castiel quiet, though he lolled side to side with the motion of the car. Dean threw occasional glances his way, discreetly of course, and the poor guy slowly morphed from the kind of happy drunk Sam was to the surly, unsteady drunk natural to himself. And he looked a little pasty.

"Dude, you gonna puke?" he said. "Oh c'mon, don't puke in my car. Shit, lemme pull over."

Dean barely hit the brakes on the shoulder of the highway before Castiel flung open the door and hurled. He sighed behind the wheel, rolling his eyes to the ceiling.

"You okay?" he asked after a moment.

Hunched over, the line of Castiel's shoulders rose and fell with a series of deep breaths. "I'm human," he mumbled as if stumbling onto a terrible revelation.

"Yeah, you are." Dean didn't exactly know what to say.

"I don't know what I'm doing without a purpose."

"Well, that's what I'm here for. I'm gonna teach you everything I know," replied Dean. Outside, cars flew by without the slightest idea they came close to a real fallen angel. "You good? We should stop and get a bottle of water."

"Okay," Castiel agreed, suddenly rather pliant now that the happy drunk wore off. He slammed the door shut again and readjusted himself in the seat as Dean pulled into traffic again. "I suppose I should learn everything about being a man. Now we can check tattoos and inebriation off the list."

"I didn't teach you to drink," Dean corrected with a finger raised. "Ellen gave you tequila shots. You also showed up drunk when we were hunting the whore of Babylon."

Castiel shrugged as if it took too much strength to verbalize a response. His heavy eyes turned drowsy and his speech slurred. "I'm human, Dean. I vomit when I consume too much alcohol. I'm never going to get used to urinating. I wake up with erec--"

"--Woah, Cas! TMI, dude." Though Dean's face soured and tightened with that image, his stomach dipped too. Again, he filed it away in the ignore pile.

"I'm human," Castiel sighed despondently. "And I feel like shit."

The rare attempts at colorful language still made Dean chuckle to himself but he buttoned it up right away. Castiel clearly wasn't in the mood to joke around. He glanced over at his passenger again, leaning back against the seat and slouching in an entirely too  _human_ way. Something about the detachment in his expression and the streetlights casting a clinical yellow glow over his stubble felt like the painful fear after waking from nightmares Dean couldn't remember.

"Yeah, well..." The hunter cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. "Welcome to the club, I guess."

"Thanks. Except I used to belong to a much better club. And now I'm powerless. I'm hapless, I'm hopeless. I mean, why the hell not bury myself in women and decadence, right?" Castiel crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged. "Why not bang a few gongs before the lights go out?"

What the...

Dean had heard that before. The tone, the slurred lack of emotion, the way his shoulders drooped with the weight of defeat...

 _Fuck_.

The white hot surge of panic crammed Dean's foot onto the brake pedal and the Impala's tires screeched as it spun off the highway. Confused, somewhat terrified, and nearly ready to puke again, Castiel grabbed the dash and the door handle until the car came to rest.

Dean threw himself out of the car and stomped through the grass to the passenger side. He ripped open Castiel's door and grabbed the new human by clumps of his shirt. This wasn't going to happen. They weren't going to move recklessly down this road toward Detroit and the campsite where he found Castiel in 2014. Fuck no. Not for himself but because....

"You listen to me and you listen good," Dean demanded, throwing him against the car. "I never wanna hear you say that shit again. That's not who you are, Cas. This is not how it's gonna... No."

"Dean--"

"--You're not gonna start popping pills and nailing random slutty chicks just because you feel shitty about being human!"

Castiel's head tipped and he squinted. "What are you talking about?"

But Dean was too unglued to hear the question. He paced back and forth through the ditch, absolutely hell bent on never seeing Castiel that broken. "What's it gonna take, Cas? How do we block off that road?"

The former angel's eyes lifted in a moment as the references took shape in his mind. He remembered, it seemed. Dean had once given a brief description of what he saw in 2014 thanks to Zachariah but he never went into the specifics of what Castiel had spoken in the future. The words, they haunted him as much as the threat of those blue eyes going dead with time and the pressure of mortality.

Again, he asked, "What's it gonna take?"

"You," Castiel said quietly.

Dean's feet tripped over a broken piece of ground and he stopped, his mind suddenly clear. "Me?"

Slowly, Castiel nodded and pushed himself off the Impala. "I know myself to some degree, Dean, and watching you slowly lose the grip on your humanity, your ability to feel, is what drove me to become what I did in that glimpse you witnessed." He stepped closer and his voice lowered. "You don't lose me. I don't lose you. That's the only way."

Hesitantly, Dean nodded. Something weighty pulled on each of those words that neither were willing to bring to light just yet, but the door cracked.

"You can't drink anymore," he decided.

"Neither can you then," bargained Castiel.

"Fine." Oh fuck, what did he agree to?

A faint smile tugged at Castiel's mouth. "Fine."

"Fine." Dean already said that and he didn't quite know what to do to wrap up the chick flick moment. "Let's, uh, let's go home."

Someday, definitely not on the side of the road with diesel in the air, one of them would have to kick the door down and admit it. But for now, Dean simply nodded as they got back in the car. Actually, he thought he probably nodded too long like a dumbass. At least he felt fairly secure that he stopped the train before it flew off the cliff.

The devil would always be out there, circling them, waiting for a weak point to strike.


End file.
